Synopsis

"Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her books are always entertaining, and she has the rare faculty of enlisting the sympathy and affections of her readers, and of holding their attention to her pages with deep and absorbing interest."

G.W. Dillingham Co., Publishers, NEW YORK.

Mary Jane Holmes was a bestselling and prolific American author who published 39 popular novels, as well as short stories. Her first novel sold 250,000 copies; and she had total sales of 2 million books in her lifetime, second only to Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Portraying domestic life in small town and rural settings, she examined gender relationships, as well as those of class and race. She also dealt with slavery and the American Civil War, with a strong sense of moral justice. Since the late 20th century, she has received fresh recognition and reappraisal, although her popular work was excluded from most 19th-century literary histories compiled by men. This book is contained 3 Romance Novels.

“‘Lena Rivers”

For many days the storm continued. Highways were blocked up, while roads less frequented were rendered wholly impassable. The oldest inhabitants of Oakland had "never seen the like before," and they shook their gray heads ominously as over and adown the New England mountains the howling wind swept furiously, now shrieking exultingly as one by one the huge forest trees bent before its power, and again dying away in a low, sad wail, as it shook the casement of some low-roofed cottage, where the blazing fire, "high piled upon the hearth," danced merrily to the sound of the storm-wind, and then, whirling in fantastic circles, disappeared up the broad-mouthed chimney.

“Aikenside”

The good people of Devonshire were rather given to quarreling-- sometimes about the minister's wife, meek, gentle Mrs. Tiverton, whose manner of housekeeping, and style of dress, did not exactly suit them; sometimes about the minister himself, good, patient Mr. Tiverton, who vainly imagined that if he preached three sermons a week, attended the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting, the Thursday evening sewing society, officiated at every funeral, visited all the sick, and gave to every beggar who called at his door, besides superintending the Sunday school, he was earning his salary of six hundred per year. Sometimes, and that not rarely, the quarrel crept into the choir, and then, for one whole Sunday, it was all in vain that Mr. Tiverton read the psalm and hymn, casting troubled glances toward the vacant seats of his refractory singers. There was no one to respond, unless it were good old Mr. Hodges, who pitched so high that few could follow him; while Mrs. Captain Simpson--whose daughter, the organist, had been snubbed at the last choir meeting by Mr. Hodges' daughter, the alto singer--rolled up her eyes at her next neighbor, or fanned herself furiously in token of her disgust.

“Tempest and Sunshine”

This good dame divided her time between squeezing the steaks, turning the corn cakes, kicking the dogs and administering various cuffs to sundry little black urchins, who were on the lookout to snatch a bit of the "hoe cake" whenever they could elude the argus eyes of Aunt Esther. When the rattling of the stage was heard, there ensued a general scrambling to ascertain which would be first to see who had come. At length, by a series of somersaults, helped on by Aunt Esther's brawny hand, the kitchen was cleared and Aunt Esther was "monarch of all she surveyed." The passengers this afternoon were few and far between, for there was but one inside and one on the box with the driver. The one inside alighted and ordered his baggage to be carried into the hotel. The stranger was a young man, apparently about twenty-five years of age. He was tall, well-proportioned and every way prepossessing in his appearance. At least the set of idlers in the barroom thought so, for the moment he entered they all directed their eyes and tobacco juice toward him!